Dovetails, An Adventure #1: The Beginning

I just joined the Wood Whisper Guild and am going to follow along with the Wall Hanging Cabinet build. There’s a lot of dovetails in that plan. I’m intrigued by hand cutting them but, having never cut one before, I’m going to need a lot of practice. So here it goes:

First up, the tools I’m using: Adjustable square, pencil, marking gauge, and dovetail angle template for layout. A dozuki for cutting the pins and tails and a fret saw for removing the waste. A couple of chisels and a mallet for fitting.

I made two attempts on Sunday which were pretty bad yet educational. Last night I cut some stock for a 7” square box with two sides 1/2” thick and the other two 3/4” thick. First lesson here is to make sure you know the orientation of each board when you’re laying out the joints. As you can see here, I failed:

Now lets take a look at the joints in all their humbling macro lens glory:

The first joint I over cut twice on the tail board. The tails and pins sit proud. There some gaps at the bottom of the the tails an pins as well. All in all this one came out better than I was expecting.

The second one I got carried away trying to fit the joint and ended up removing way to much material yielding a very loose joint.

The third try was much better. There are a few gaps around the joint and it does not quite sit square but miles better than the second one.

The fourth was where I got the front and back of the tail board confused and laid it out backwards. Opps. It’s the nicest fitting of all of the joints but has some gaps at the bottoms of the the tail. I’m still trying figure out how to set my marking gauge so that the line it cuts is perfect.

Things that are proving tough/need practice:

I’m worried that I’m cutting do deep on the marking gauge. It does not seem like those lines will sand out very well. In fact I’m having trouble imagining a setting that will be both good at scoring the fibers along the cut and not marring the surface more that can be sanded out. I should play around with sanding at different depth settings.

Cutting 90 degrees to the face for the tails and 90 degrees to the end for the pins is going to require a quite a bit more practice. One trick I learned on the fourth joint was to check to tails for square before transferring to the in board and clean up any error with a chisel.

Getting the marking gauge set correctly so that there’s no gab at the bottom and the pins and tails do not sit proud.

A woodworking pal and I were discussing those marking gauge lines just last night. We noticed that many woodworkers leave the marks in the final product. I have even seen them in magazines that way. I personally have not made up my mind about them but there are some who leave them and like the look if that helps you at all. I guess the other option is to assemble the drawer a little oversized and then plane them away when fitting.